1. Technical Field
The present disclosure generally relates to systems and methods for monitoring a process workflow, such as a workflow in a document processing environment.
2. Background
Print shops can include any environment in which multiple document production devices are networked or configured to provide a document assembly environment within which documents can be printed, cut, finished, coated, bound, assembled, or otherwise created to form a variety of document types. Workflows have commonly been used to provide a structured process for document creation in such an environment. A workflow is a process that uses electronic systems to manage and monitor business processes, thus allowing the flow of work between individuals, devices and/or departments to be defined and tracked. A workflow can include the operational aspects of a work process: how tasks are structured, who or what device performs them, what is the relative order of various tasks, how tasks are synchronized, how information flows to support the tasks and how tasks are being tracked.
In particular, a workflow can be used to describe the movement of a document through a process. A workflow is a predefined plurality of operations used to approve, verify, modify and/or otherwise process a document. These operations can include processing of an electronic file before printing. Such operations can include file conversion, file merging, missing font detection, graphic resolution checking, error notification, print previewing, automatic job ticket creation, automatic production ticket creation, impositions, page annotations, document bar coding, page ordering, archiving and/or print routing. The operations also can include processing a physical document on which content is printed.
A typical job and/or workflow scheduling problem in document production environments assigns jobs to resources and orders the jobs to achieve an optimization objective, such as minimizing the total turnaround time, ensuring that no jobs complete later than a defined time, or to accomplish other goals. In order to monitor the progress of a job in a production environment such as a printing environment, indicators of job performance and status must be identified and monitored. These indicators may vary based on the type of job or other factors within the printing environment. It is desired to find improved ways of identifying performance indicators to be monitored in a production environment such as a print shop.
The embodiments described herein relate to attempts to solve one or more of the problems described above.